All last week, I was inspired by an Allsorts challenge to ‘Use Sentiments as a Focus’. Although I’ve missed the challenge (long gone – duh!), I’m going to blog the cards I made because it’s something I don’t do a lot of. I do always like to use an inspirational sentiment but it’s rarely the actual focus of the card and I generally start with an inked background, so it was fun to do things differently for a little while.

The first two are simply stamped in Versamark ink on watercolour paper, then embossed with white EP and painted over with watercolours.

This one was stamped around the edges of glossy card in Versamark (for a resist effect), then sponged over with Distress inks. The sentiment was stamped in the centre – still on Autumn!

This is a Media plate background I played with a couple of weeks ago, adding bits of gold leaf to the flowers and around the edges, using a Quickie Glue pen.

The final card is stamped on a background I made by mopping up remaining Distress inks and adding a little more colour where I thought I needed it.

This last one is just a card I made for a friend who isn’t very well… it’s made with Distress Oxides on watercolour paper, using Lavinia stamps again…. must admit, this is one of my personal favourites!

I feel more than a little embarrassed about posting this as a technique because it really is so EASY, but here you go…

I used just three shades of Ecoline inks – Cerise, Cyan and Yellow – then, taking a sheet of card (thickish) or watercolour paper (I used hot press smooth) I just painted them on randomly (with thick brushes) and left them to dry. What a cheat? The colours blend beautifully and create all those shades you can see on the ATCs. On some, I wet the card or paper first, then added the inks, on others I spritzed after painting, then mopped up excess colour with another sheet of card/paper, so I ended up with lots of variations – some muddier looking than others, some paler.

Word of warning – it looks YUKKY before you stamp it and the white highlighting really does make all the difference 🙂

I did try this with Adirondack reinkers but they are too highly pigmented, so the colours are too dark. Great for inkpads but not for techniques like this. I am intending trying the same thing with Vivid Reinkers because I have quite a lot of those – I’ll upload my results when I do.

Here are a couple of the backgrounds BS (Before Stamping).

I think the first two were spritzed VERY lightly. Don’t they look YUKKY?

The second two pieces were wet before I started and then were spritzed a little more before being allowed to dry. These look much nicer unstamped.